


What the Heart Remembers

by NervousAsexual



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, i think i might have made it worse, i tried to fix it guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 23:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9294851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Emily was just a kid when it all fell apart. It's hard for her to remember her mother as anyone besides the woman in the paintings.  So Corvo decides the time has come to pass on his gift.The Outsider has other plans.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [hearts and souls](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037925) by [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai). 



He would lay awake at night, the Heart in his hands. He held it close to his ear--sometimes it felt deceptively warm. In the silence of the castle it would whisper.

"The rain on the roof frightens her."

"She has seen your mark, and wonders."

"Already the young have forgotten. There was not always an elixir to save them."

"The boy who stables the horses tells stories of you to his sisters. Wild, thrilling stories, yet only half false."

And then one night, as he was about to doze off, the Heart slipped from his fingers and as it slid down beside him it whispered, "She would never tell you that she doesn't remember the sound of the Empress' voice."

He thought his cold dead heart would break.

He put the heart back in its velvet-lined box and stepped out onto the balcony for a think.

Honestly he should have expected this. When everything had fallen apart Emily had been just eleven, and that was more than five years ago.

There were audiographs, of course. There were audiographs and letters and paintings and none of those could hold a candle to Jessamine Kaldwin. When she lived she had been a voice and a force and a slip of paper pocked with holes could never hope to match.

As he looked out over the water, Corvo came to a decision. He came back and picked up the box where the Heart slept, and he went before he could convince himself how terrible an idea this really was.

 

* * *

 

When he returned it was alone and empty-handed. Carefully he latched the door behind him. There was nothing to say to the dark-eyed man who stood on the crumbling balcony.

"Well, Corvo," the Outsider said, "here you are again."

Corvo wished he would go away.

The Outsider glided forward and behind him the balcony cracked into dust, as if space itself fell apart as he left it. "Did you think you were done with my gift? Or did you think that she would need it more?"

He wasn't sure what he felt. Anger? Resentment? He tried to put it aside. It was long past time to sleep.

"Well, you're wrong. And you're right."

He went to the bed and pulled back the covers. In the morning he'd worry. Right now he'd done what he'd done, and... and...

And the hand of the Outsider, cold and dry like that of a Weeper, closed around his wrist. As he pulled back the grip tightened.

"The day will come when you'll need it again," said the Outsider. "But of course I suspected you might react this way. So, Corvo, I have one more gift for you."

The pressure on his wrist increased, and when he opened his hand something was put into it. Although he desperately, desperately did not want to look, he did, and saw that it was the Heart.

But no. Although the heart in his hand looked similar it was not identical. This one was darker, marked here and there with scars, and where hers had been light as air, this one lay heavily in his hand.

The Outsider let go of his wrist and he squeezed the heart--gently, oh so gently.

For a moment there was silence. Then, in a low, tired, familiar voice that made his blood run cold, the heart whispered, "The faces in the water--" but whatever it meant to say was drowned out by the wail that strangled itself in Corvo's throat.

_No._

He looked up but the Outsider was gone. The night was as still and unremarkable as before but the heart pulsed softly in his hand.

Yes, it had been years. How long? How long since they last parted ways there at the Hound's Pit Pub? Anything could have happened in those long full years but he would have given anything not to know.

_Not him. Not like this._

"Even the sea ends," the heart whispered.

He closed his eyes against the tears and lay back on the bed. With shaking hands he held Samuel's heart to his chest and remembered the moonlight on the water, the hum of the motor, the endless lapping of the waves on the Wrenhaven--anything but this.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the only way I would have been remotely "okay" with Samuel being gone in Dish2. And I'm crying now, so okay is probably too strong a word. I need a hug, you guys.


End file.
